Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BY THE TIME Arthford arrived in Shropshire, it was all tied up with a pretty bow.
Rutchester told him that Patience had gotten word in a letter from the countess that Champeraigne had assisted Lady Lilsbin on her way to bed the first night she had arrived.
“He just did that all on his own, no prompting from anyone?” said Arthford, completely flummoxed.
“We lucked into it,” said Rutchester. “Or he walked right into it, anyway. It was reported by the countess, and everyone in the house saw, and now it’s just a matter of using the leverage.”
They were going to wait there for the arrival of Nothshire and Dunrose, and then the four of them would travel to London to intercept Champeraigne and tell him that he must stop blackmailing them or they would send Lilsbin to kill Champeraigne.
Hopefully, it worked.
If Champeraigne wriggled free, then perhaps they’d actually send Lilsbin. Arthford thought they should.
Seraphine wouldn’t like it, and he’d promised her that no one got hurt, so she’d be displeased all around if so, but he didn’t really care what it was she thought.
He waited overnight, and on the morrow, Nothshire and Dunrose appeared. They all set off together in Nothshire’s carriage. It was a long journey, and it would take them days, so they settled in for the trip.
The first night, they stopped to change out horses and to hire a new driver and rode through the night to make up the time, all of them sleeping in the back of the carriage, sprawled out on the other.
The next night, they decided to stop at an inn.
They went into the main room first and sat down at the tables and ordered food to eat. Arthford ended up seated with Nothshire, asking him questions about his marriage.
“Didn’t your wife not want to marry you? She wanted to be independent or something?”
“Well, to some degree, but it was really just that she’d had a really horrible husband before me,” said Nothshire. “She didn’t wish to get back in that situation, which only made sense to me, really. But then we were being, er, intimate, and there was a chance I could have gotten her with child, and I just started saying to her that she was being ridiculous. She would have been far worse off as a woman alone with a child than married to me, you know.”
“Oh, obviously. So, then she came round.”
“Well, no, she had this ridiculous idea that she was going to raise our child as a foundling, and no one would know it was her child, and it was madness.”
“Right.” Arthford furrowed his brow. “So, at what point did she relent?”
“You know, I think it was actually when I told her about what we’d done with our fathers. Because she could trust me, then. She had something to use against me, I suppose, not that I thought that she would. But if she was afraid of being vulnerable with me, I was similarly afraid of being vulnerable. Once we were both able to show our vulnerability to each other, everything was different.”
“Oh,” said Arthford, thinking that through. “I don’t think that’s the problem with us.”
“Us?”
“I think I’m engaged,” said Arthford.
“You are not!” said Nothshire, chuckling.
“Well, likely not, because she thinks I’m bored with her and she basically told me to leave her and said I wouldn’t wish to come back.”
“Doesn’t sound anything like you. You’re not the sort to get bored with a woman,” said Nothshire. “That’s Dunrose.”
“She thinks that’s all men,” said Arthford. “To be fair, she hasn’t had the best of experiences in that way, either. Why are there so many women who’ve been so badly treated by men?”
“Not just women,” said Nothshire. “Look at us with our fathers. Why are there so many bad men? That’s an interesting question. I think it comes down to either desperation or entitlement, and Champeraigne would say our way of organizing ourselves breeds both. Soon, the peasants are going to rise up everywhere and take our titles and lands and money from us. That’ll stop the entitlement, at least. Maybe.”
“Oh, yes, it’ll be quite easy to simply get rid of rich men,” said Arthford, nodding. “That’s possible.”
Nothshire shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps not.”
“There have always been rich men.”
“True,” said Nothshire. “But there are new things in this world of ours. There never used be guns or cannons, you know? Maybe the next invention is to invent some way to equalize everyone.”
Arthford scoffed.
“Now, who is it you’re trying to marry?”
“I thought you knew. It’s Miss Marjorie Adams of Briar Abbey.”
“You’re joking,” said Nothshire. He’d never visited the place, never seen Marjorie, with our without her clothes, but her reputation was well known.
“Don’t be like that about it,” said Arthford.
“Obviously, you’d want a woman like that.”
“No, she’s not like that,” said Arthford. “Her father forced her to do that, and she didn’t wish it, and she was a virgin, anyway, when I—”
“Was a virgin?”
“Well, it’s good that I’m marrying her, isn’t it?”
“She sounds as if she is a woman like that,” said Nothshire. “If that’s what you want for a wife—”
“Oh, come now, don’t be that way.”
“Well, her father was really barely a gentleman, wasn’t he? She’s not really of the right social circle to marry a duke.”
“I hadn’t taken you for a snob.”
“It’ll be difficult for her is what I’m saying,” said Nothshire. “How do you expect her to perform the duties of a duchess, really? You think she’ll host dinner parties or that anyone will come to a ball where she is presiding over it? Her? And furthermore, how are you going to take her into public, when you’ll know that men who are present at every ball and dinner party and opera you attend have paid to look at her?”
“I don’t care.”
“She might care.”
“We don’t need to have a social life. It’s not important to me.”
“I suppose you two have talked about this.”
He shook his head, sighing. “No, we talked a lot, about a number of things, and in the end, we spoke of nothing remotely practical.”
“Why don’t you just make her your mistress?” said Nothshire.
“I want children.”
“Well, you’ll marry someone else for that.”
“No, I can’t… I’m not wired that way, for two women,” said Arthford.
Nothshire nodded. “No, neither am I, truly.” He shrugged. “I wonder that anyone is, really. It’s more that once you’ve taken a woman on, and she relies on you, you’re a right blackguard to cut her loose. So, you keep her attached, even though you’ve already moved on.”
Arthford sighed. “True, I suppose. If things had been different with Seraphine, if she’d somehow been my wife, I would be stuck with her. She’d have no problem going off to have other men, though, not while I was moving on.”
“No, she would not.”
“But Marjorie… I don’t think it will be that way. I’m not going to wish to move on from her.”
“Well, you said that about the marchioness, though.”
Arthford felt that sourly. He was thinking about what Dunrose had said, that falling desperately in love was only a sign of inexperience, and that once a man had a lot of women he stopped falling in love at all. But then he rejected the notion. If that were true, he should love Marjorie less than he had loved Seraphine, and each conquest of his should be materially less intense. He definitely cared more for Marjorie than he had ever cared for Seraphine. He shook his head. “Whatever I had with Seraphine, it was some sort of adolescent infatuation. I was in love, I thought, but I didn’t really love her. I think I was sort of in love with the idea of being in love, in the end. And with Marjorie, well, she sort of needs me in this other way. I feel worth something. It’s quite different.”
Nothshire considered this, stroking his chin, quiet for a long time. “I shall say this, I suppose. There was something about Patience, something that shook me in some deep way. I saw her, and yes, I wanted… I don’t know if I wanted her to need me, but I wanted to do something worthwhile for her.”
“No, I remember,” said Arthford. “I entirely remember that conversation, your saying you wanted to get rid of her husband. And you did it, didn’t you, despite the fact that I told you not to do it.”
“It wasn’t a rational sort of thing to do, but I sort of couldn’t stop myself. And if someone would have told me to pick a different sort of woman—and there could have been objections to Patience, of course. She was not at all amenable to being courted by me, it’s true. But I was decided, somehow, and I wasn’t going to be turned from it. I suppose if you feel that way, there is little point in my trying to deter you from it.”
Arthford smiled at his friend. “There is little point indeed.”
“All right, then,” said Nothshire, shrugging at him. He lifted his glass. “I wish you joy.”
Arthford clinked his glass against Nothshire’s.
WHEN THEY ARRIVED in London, they discovered that Champeraigne had not yet returned to the city. He had left Shropshire, and they had thought he was on his way to London, but he had yet to appear.
This made everyone nervous.
Had Champeraigne discovered what they were planning and determined some way to thwart it?
But then word came that Champeraigne had stopped over at a house just outside of London, where the Marquis de Fateux was staying. He had no plans of returning to London proper anytime soon, so they all got in a carriage and traveled to see him.
They arrived in the afternoon, and they were all shown into a sitting room. Fateux was there, and so was Seraphine. They all exchanged pleasantries, talked about the weather, spoke about hunting gambits. Fateux did not ask them to stay, rather notably.
Finally, after some time, Champeraigne agreed to go on a walk with them on the grounds, citing his curiosity. He seemed smug, however, in that way of his, and Arthford engaged in a pleasant fantasy of skewering the man through the throat.
However, in this, they would be foiled, for Champeraigne was insistent that no one brought any weapons along. He brought his cane, however, and made a point to show everyone that there was a blade hidden within it, though he did this in a jocular way, as if he weren’t actually threatening them.
They walked.
Champeraigne insisted Rutchester lead the way, so that he was walking behind the man. He and Nothshire fell into step.
“I have been wondering what the four of you have been up to,” said Champeraigne. “I heard about the birth of your son, Nothshire, and I thought it might galvanize you to try some sort of strike against me. I have been waiting. And then, when Seraphine wished me to go to Shropshire, I wondered if that was part of it. It’s odd, truly, because it rather frightens me in some ways.” He looked around at them. “The four of you, you have proven to be deadly and violent in so very many ways. And I know you hate me. So, it’s a bit terrifying, but, well, have you noticed that there’s nothing quite like terror, nothing in the world? That one can’t rightly feel alive if one isn’t a bit frightened?”
Nothshire furrowed his brow. “No, I’ve not noticed that.”
Champeraigne shrugged. “Well, perhaps it’s because I’m providing you the service of being the threat in your life. If I should disappear, you might all feel very, very bored. You had your fathers, after all, and then me. You wouldn’t know how to exist if there was nothing after you.”
“That’s not true,” said Arthford witheringly.
“Well, stop keeping me in suspense,” said Champeraigne. “What is it you’ve done?”
Nothshire stopped walking.
Champeraigne stopped walking. He settled his cane in front of himself and eyed Rutchester sidelong. He was smiling. He looked as if he was having the time of his life.
“It was well reported that in Shropshire, you were quite solicitous to the Viscountess of Lilsbin,” said Nothshire.
“Oho!” said Champeraigne. “So, I was. Lord, that was foolish of me, wasn’t it? I know quite the reputation her husband has in terms of his jealousy.”
“You do,” said Nothshire. “So, you know that we have only to speak to him, and both Dunrose and I have formed a friendship with him while you were in Shropshire, and he trusts us. If we tell him that you have dallied with his wife…”
Champeraigne laughed. “Well, then, not bad. Not bad at all, boys. So, your demands are… what? That I stop compelling you to do my bidding or paying me any money or you will send him to do away with me? Is that right?”
Nothshire nodded.
Arthford didn’t like the way Champeraigne was taking it.
“All right,” said Champeraigne. “Touché. You have me. For now, anyway. Let’s see how long this lasts.”
“All right?” said Dunrose. “Just like that?”
“Well, it seems as if you went to quite a bit of trouble to set it all up, so it wasn’t ‘just like that,’” said Champeraigne. “And until I find a way out of this tangle, it will be a bit of a financial blow for me.” He lifted his cane. “I don’t intend to take it lying down, of course, but for now, I am entirely at your mercy. I shall leave you all alone until I can think of some way free of it.” He saluted them, setting the cane down on the ground. “It’s odd, you know, Seraphine said something about feeling a bit of motherly affection for you, Arthford, and I feel, well, a sort of sense of pride, rather a fatherly sense of pride. My boys, how you’ve schemed. Well done. Yes, well done indeed.”
No one knew quite what to say to that.
“But get off this property now,” said Champeraigne in a silky voice. “Get out of my sight.”
“THAT WAS TOO easy,” muttered Dunrose as they all settled back into the carriage.
It was only about six miles back into town, so it was not to be a long carriage ride. They were all bit disgruntled at this point, however.
“We should simply send Lilsbin to kill him,” said Arthford. “It’s the only way to end this. I said it before, and I think it’s the best way forward.”
“Maybe we lure him out into the woods and I stab him,” said Rutchester in a quiet voice. “Maybe… a hunting party or—”
“Right now, he’d be even more suspicious than before,” said Dunrose. “That’s not the way forward, Rutchester.”
“I think he was bluffing,” said Nothshire. “His pride wouldn’t allow him to react as if we’d really bested him. He had to pretend as if he was unruffled. But I think it all went very well, actually. We accomplished what we set out to accomplish. It’s done.”
“He says he’s planning a way out of it,” said Arthford. “And I think he’ll find one. He’s the Comte fucking Champeraigne. Are we mad? We need to kill him now before we lose our leverage.”
“I agree,” said Rutchester. “There’s only one way this ends, and that’s with him dead.”
“Didn’t we say before that we don’t know who else he’s told?” said Nothshire. “Didn’t we point out Fateux might be a problem?” He nodded at Arthford. “Even the marchioness, you said, she might step up and start to manipulate us?”
“Yes, but we are in a stronger position with him gone,” said Arthford.
“Or they are both even angrier with us,” said Nothshire. “He wanted to make us feel wary. He succeeded. If we behave rashly now, it’s just playing into his hands.”
“You simply want to go back to your wife and child,” said Arthford.
“Well, I do,” said Nothshire. “But I really believe that we must not panic. Hold strong. We have triumphed.”
It didn’t feel like triumph.